Author Topic: U.N. Battlecruiser Fleets - Full list, doctrine, and link to each design.  (Read 1980 times)

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Offline Starmantle (OP)

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All, I've released a lot of ship designs over the weeks, but this is my attempt to show how they fit together in the heaviest U.N fleets.  The only ships I'll reference here without linking to are the carrier and fighters, which I'll make posts about in the coming weeks.

Enjoy!

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U.N. Battlecruiser Fleets

Overview

By 2072, the U.N. had grown to 6 heavily populated systems including two non-human home-worlds and dozens of small colonies and outposts. 

The primary force projection fleets of this era were the two Battlecruiser Fleets - Marilith Fleet and Demon Fleet, controlled by the Combine and Fleet Command, respectively. 

These fleets also each hosted two carriers of strike craft and support ships, but those elements varied greatly due to differences in Combine and Navy doctrine. 

As the heaviest regular fleets fielded by the U.N., one typically operated near an expanding jump chain or known alien threat, while the other guarded Sol. 

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Doctrine

As the U.N's primary means of force projection, it was important that the battlecruiser fleets have immense operational windows and long range.  Political pressures also pushed the ships to use efficient engines and save sorium, which meant big engines and moderate speeds.  This was augmented, though, by pursuit elements including significant fighter wings.

Each ship in the battlecruiser fleet had a particular specialty and they were designed to operate greater than the sum of their parts as a fleet (Vice Admiral Davis's Gestalt principle), but it was also important that ships remain powerful individually, and for even anti-missile and command ships to be able to defeat lesser destroyers in 1:1 combat.  Redundancy of sensors and other key systems like emergency cryo berths were also incorporated to guard against catastrophic problems from key combat losses. 

In short, every tactical and strategic encounter leading up to the formation of these fleets informed the doctrine and design of the fleet as a whole. 

The overall offensive doctrine is built around overwhelming waves of long-range attack missile designed to overwhelm enemy anti-missile defenses, ideally destroying the enemy with anti-missile-missiles still in their magazines.  This approach leads to overkill, but this is mitigated somewhat through missile sensors.

The overall defensive doctrine relies in an extremely layered approach with a mix of long-range anti-missiles, "active defense pods" to generate a surge of antimissile fire when needed, lots of fast Gauss turrets to ease up on the need for anti-missile ordinance, and significant organic defense including thick armor, shields, ECM, and in some cases, CIWS.

Nova Bombs are the fleet's primary defense against swift enemy beam fleets that somehow manage to close to beam range.  These ships are destroyed with overwhelmingly powerful short-range bombs that are designed to evade missile defenses.

"Granular cohesion" was a key part of fleet doctrine, meaning that a large battlecruiser fleet should be able to break off escorts, scout ships, logistical ships, etc. for key missions without seriously compromising the offensive or defensive capabilities of the battlecruiser fleet as a whole and while retaining all needed elements for the subgroup.

For battlecruiser fleet ships, standard speed was set at 6,250 km/s for all non-pursuit ships.  For battle line combatants, standard ECM was strength-4, the best available, and a standard shield rating was a rating of 80, with a minimum armor strength rating of 6.  Support-line ships had much more variable individual defenses and tended to have low ECM and no shields.  A fuel tank allowing for 150 days at full speed was considered fleet-standard, as was a 4-year deployment time and maintenance life. 

"Support-line" components tended to operate 1 jump "back" at the jump gate.  It could be called up in whole or in part by the fleet admiral for refueling or other key functions.  Certain ships like the Warden, carriers, etc moved back and forth between battle-line and back line more readily than less defended ships, though the battlecruiser fleets sometime operated with both lines together when weight of active anti-missile defense was more important than passive defenses like ECM or when operating far withing enemy territory. 

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Note that some of the below links go to multiple versions of the same ship.  Make sure you're looking at the correct one.
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Battle Line
(520,000 tons)

1x [Myrmidon-C class Command Battlecruiser - https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7pib9r/myrmidon_class_command_battlecruiser_2_generations/

1x Harbinger-C class Jump Battlecruiser - https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7qlg0k/harbinger_class_jump_battlecruiser_2_generations/
    2x Y-AWACs-B Recon Fighter   Speed: 16891 km/s    Size: 4.44
    4x Y-wing-B Fighter-Bomber   Speed: 16891 km/s    Size: 4.44
    1x Grylls Jump Scout   Speed: 30737 km/s    Size: 2.44
    1x Crybaby Cub Sensor Fighter   Speed: 30737 km/s    Size: 2.44
    9x Dart-E Interceptor   Speed: 30991 km/s    Size: 4.84
    2x Half Dart-E-L Interceptor Leader   Speed: 32051 km/s    Size: 2.34

5x Manticore-C class Barrage Battlecruiser
- https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7p9cqh/manticore_class_barrage_battlecruiser_2/)

2x Concordia-B class Strike Carriers
    82x Y-wing-B Fighter-Bomber   Speed: 16891 km/s    Size: 4.44
    4x Y-AWACs-B Recon Fighter   Speed: 16891 km/s    Size: 4.44
    2x Y-Extension-B Light Tanker   Speed: 16891 km/s    Size: 4.44
    2x Y-Lightning-B Recon Fighter   Speed: 16891 km/s    Size: 4.44

3x Iron Knuckle-C class Flack Battlecruiser - https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7q7r7n/iron_knuckle_class_flack_battlecruiser_2/

2x Warlock-C class Area Defense Battlecruisers - https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7q144n/warlock_class_area_defense_battlecruiser_2/

1x Grimlock class Barrage Battlecruiser - https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7qqixn/grimlock_class_barrage_battlecruiser/

1x Midgaard class Barrage Battlecruiser - https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7r3ltc/midgaard_class_barrage_battlecruiser/

1x Ordinator class Heavy Magazine Ship - https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7qftbk/ordinator_class_heavy_magazine_ship/

1x Oracle class Sensor Frigate - https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7qyk41/oracle_class_sensor_frigate/
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Support-line
159,000 tons

1x Warden-B class Escort Heavy Cruiser](https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7ro7tm/wardenb_class_escort_heavy_cruiser/

2x Shrike class Escort Frigates](https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7s0mne/shrike_class_escort_frigate/

4x Shepherd class Escort Corvettes](https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7p1g3j/shepherd_class_escort_corvette/

1x Loki class CQB Corvette https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7qe150/lokib_class_cqb_corvette/

1x Ordinator class Heavy Magazine Ship https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7qftbk/ordinator_class_heavy_magazine_ship/)

1x Durance class Tanker https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7rto73/durance_class_tanker/

2x Ranger-E class Marine Frigates https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7r8aqs/ranger_class_marine_frigates_and_breaching/
   16x Taurus-C Breaching Shuttles https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7r8aqs/ranger_class_marine_frigates_and_breaching/   Speed: 38501 km/s    Size: 9.74
   2x Angel Marine Dropship Escort https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7r8aqs/ranger_class_marine_frigates_and_breaching/ Speed: 38560 km/s Size: 3.89
   1x Chinook Fast Shuttle https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7r8aqs/ranger_class_marine_frigates_and_breaching/ Speed: 33482 km/s Size: 2.24
   1x Stiletto Insertion Shuttle - https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7r8aqs/ranger_class_marine_frigates_and_breaching/ Speed: 39062 km/s Size: 1.92

1x Hippocrates-B class Hospital Frigate - https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7pj2u6/hippocratesb_class_hospital_frigate

1x Quartermaster B Mod 1 class Support Frigate - https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7owcre/quartermaster_class_support_frigate

2x Open Flame class Scouts - https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7ruz7s/covered_lantern_class_scout_and_open_flame_class

2x Covered Lantern class Scouts - https://www.reddit.com/r/aurora4x/comments/7ruz7s/covered_lantern_class_scout_and_open_flame_class

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Total capabilities


Does not include armaments of strike craft

- ASM missile tubes: 900 (0.25, size 4, 29 minute reload):
- ASM Missile tubes (box launchers, size 4): 492
- Maximum long range salvo: 1,392 missiles(before separation)
- Utility missile tubes: 2 (size 12)
- Light Quad Gauss turrets: 186 (136 battle-line and 50 support-line)
- Missiles destroyed per 5 seconds via Gauss only: **363** (194 battle-line and 169 support-line)(assumes 32,000 missile speed)
- Active Defense Pods: 1,882 (782 battle-line and 1100 support-line)
- AMM fast missile tubes: 148 (usable as mid-range missile launchers as well)
- 1-shot Sparrow ASM tubes: 630 (432 battle-line and 198 support-line)
- Reloadable Sparrow Missile Tubes: 720 (battle-line.  Re-loadable in 7 minutes)
- Magazine: 26,875
- Lasers: 3 (2 heavy, 1 spinal, battle-line)
- Microwaves: [b]1[/b] (support-line)
- Strike craft: 129 (109 battle-line and 20 support-line)
- Nova Bombs (single launch): 102 (70 battle-line-line and 32 support-line)
- Cryo berths: 11,000 (1600 battle-line and 9400 support-line)
- Troops: 2,200 (1 battalion of Hovertanks and 17 companies of Marines)[/li][/list]

 
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